Seagulls plaguing east coast communities
EXASPERATED residents of an East Sutherland village who are being plagued by “rats of the sky”, including one woman who was attacked by a seagull as she tried to enter her home, are being urged to protect their properties from the birds.
While on a night-time walk recently, it slipped Valerie Pryde’s mind that seagulls had been nesting near her house on Grant Crescent, Golspie, and she came to a sudden halt when she saw two of the young birds just outside her front gate.
She was then dive-bombed by three other gulls, forcing her to flee.
She said: “I was quite a bit away from my house, probably 50-100 yards, and the mother spotted me and then another one and they were all swooping at me. I had to move off really quickly.
“I went all the way round and tried to get into my back door. They were up on my chimney and one of them spotted me again and attacked me in the back garden. It wasn’t very nice.”
Valerie escaped unhurt, but this week expressed concern for the safety of her 13-year-old son and other youngsters in the area.
She said: “The gulls tend to nest on the chimneys in our street. We’ve got ours covered, but they were nesting on my neighbour’s and he was away working so there’s nothing we could do.
“There are two little kids who live along the road from me and they were playing in their garden. I was concerned about them.
“The last two or three years my boy hasn’t been able to go out in the garden because they’ve been attacking. It’s serious and it’s a problem when I can’t get in my front gate for at least two months of the year.”
Mike Boydell, who lives on Seaforth Road in Golspie, has been losing sleep because of nuisance gulls, but cautioned against extreme action.
He said: “We can’t have much of a barbecue at the moment because if we do we get swooped on and they try to steal the food.
“The noise is absolutely unbearable. The seagulls sit in the middle of the road from about 3am braying for their parents to come.
“It’s inconvenient, but at the end of the day it’s us that invaded their habitat not vice-versa. We need to think about a humane way of controlling their presence in the village; we’re not after culling these animals.
“Taking the nests down and putting deterrents in the way of them rebuilding the nests in built-up areas is a good idea as well as putting out the message to not feed these things.”
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Distressed residents have taken up the matter with East Sutherland and Edderton councillor Graham Phillips, who lives in Littleferry, just outside the village.
He told the Northern Times that those who got in touch “felt helpless” over the issue, adding: “Somebody said to me that they are rats of the sky and I must say, I can sympathise.”
Councillor Phillips set out to see what action could be taken and discovered that householders were allowed to remove gulls in some circumstances.
The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 makes it illegal to capture, injure or destroy any wild bird or interfere with its nest or eggs, but the Scottish Government and Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) can issue licenses contrary to the restrictions.
There is currently a general licence in place issued by SNH which allows “authorised persons” in Scotland to kill or take certain birds – including some species of seagull – for the preservation of public health, public safety and preventing the spread of disease.
An authorised person can be the owner or occupier, or any person nominated by the owner or occupier of the land on which the action is taken.
Councillor Phillips urged people to “seagull-proof” their properties using the measures.
He said: “We need community action. It’s perfectly natural for gulls to do this, what we need is to not have them on people’s chimneys.
“It’s ideal if you do so before eggs are laid and better still if you get ready for next year by putting spikes or a cowl on your chimney to stop nests in the first place.
“The next thing is to dissuade people from feeding them. There’s a small number of people who still think it’s a good thing to do.”
Councillor Phillips’ ward colleague Deirdre Mackay, who lives in Brora where this is also a problem, agrees that feeding is a major issue.
She said: “This is an annual concern. Every year I have representations from families and individuals who suffer from the gulls nesting in the area.
“They make a mess of washing, screech, and become very aggressive once the chicks hatch.
“In my immediate neighbourhood, we’ve had children who couldn’t use their playhouse because the gulls were dive-bombing them. Then there was another incident where a gull attacked a man in the face and a couple of years ago a child was knocked off their bike.
“There’s no question that part of the issue is people feeding them. Every year the council raises awareness about that, but people still persist.
“Councils have shied back because there’s been a lack of clarity over what can be done, but there comes a point when people have the right to live in peace and comfort from the gulls.”
An SNH spokesperson noted that those using the general licence should remember “there are specific terms and conditions under which management must take place and welfare is an important consideration”.
The licence requires that any action taken against lesser black-backed gulls and herring gulls must be reported to the SNH licensing team by January 31, 2016.
Measures outlined in the document must only be used where appropriate non-lethal methods of control, for example scaring or bird proofing, are either ineffective or impracticable.
n To read the general license in full, visit www.snh.gov.uk/docs/A1481559.pdf
